Images: Edward Hopper

I had heard of Edward Hopper before, but it wasn’t until a summer or two after high school, when I was working the overnight shift at a gas station, that I was hooked. I saw his painting “Gas” and was shown how even my lonely hours at BP could become the subject of art. He…

The Melancholy of William Blake

No matter how poor he got, and no matter what of his belongings he had to sell to get by, William Blake always held onto a print of Albrecht Dürer’s 1514 work, Melencolia I; it was found in his workroom when he died. And so it is worth looking in detail, again and again, at…

Bruce Springsteen on “Nebraska,” & When the Demo is the Album

Two passages from Bruce Springsteen talking about his 1982 album Nebraska. You can hear the entire album here: Nebraska began as an unknowing meditation on my childhood and its mysteries. I had no conscious political agenda or social theme. I was after a feeling, a tone that felt like the world I’d known and still…

“The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old” now available

My book of short stories, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, is now available. My essay on the book is here.  Order it directly from the publisher, Square, Small Press Distribution, and Amazon. Ebook links here. Please consider ordering directly from the publisher or Square. Each of the twelve stories is told by an…